10 for 10,000 Day 7
I built my own Prison:
How did I do that? It started out as the hope of all hope that this house. This place. This connection would be the thing that finally saved us. This would be the “last hope”. It had to be the answer.
In building this home I could find a way to love and trust him again. I wanted to give one more shot at saving the marriage.
I thought that if we could work together physically and emotionally, building a new house side by side maybe he would start to cleave to me and none else, so we sank all of our money into building the Revolutionary Home. We broke ground in September 2002 on the Red House in Huntsville.
Side by side we worked together to cut down on the costs.
Together we surveyed the lot, excavated, dug footings, set concrete forms, poured the foundation, did the cement work, laid the floor cap, and framed the house together. The work that we did on the house was bringing us together. We worked through all sorts of weather: hail, sleet, rain, until the winter snows fell. Together, we were physically building the home from September 2002 to March 2003.
There were moments of magic, months of soberness, and moments of true love. The months of soberness brought our family close together. He attended church with the family, and I was feeling a sense of peace and of love again. The Red House really was helping us to rebuild our trust as a couple again.
He would actually invest back in the relationship, by asking how the children were doing. He was gaining some interest in wanting to help them, and to help me. It was a time that I could breathe, build trust, and have moments of hope and love enter back into my heart.
Little did I know that with each shovel of dirt, each piece of wood that I cut, each hammer that I nailed, I was actually building myself a physical prison that matched my spiritual prison.
At the time, the Red House was a slice of time to rebuild my strength in my family, my faith, and in our marriage. These were the “cherry days” of the Red House. It did not feel like a prison--not until the last paycheck came in and suddenly the realization of the thickness of the walls, the hardness of the flooring, and the complete strength of the 3 doors would keep me enclosed here for the next 18 months. No.
I was in a beautiful house, not a cage. This was a reprieve from the darkness, but soon the darkness would engulf us again. And the dream we had built became our nightmare--the wooden prison. (see Chapters 16 & 20 from Pinpoints of Light).